


Hear My Hearts Burst Again

by Ellienerd14



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Dhawan Doctor, Episode AU: s12e1-2 Spyfall, F/M, Role Reversal, Whittaker Master
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-14
Updated: 2020-04-17
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:07:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23146693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ellienerd14/pseuds/Ellienerd14
Summary: Ever since he fell into their lives (literally) Yaz, Ryan and Graham have been sure they can trust the Doctor. But, when investigations into mysterious deaths of international spies brings an old friend into their team. But something dark lies beyond O's dorky professor exterior, dark enough to twist everything they think they know about the Doctor.(AKA the Master and Doctor role swap AU)
Relationships: The Doctor & The Master (Doctor Who), Thirteenth Doctor & The Master (Dhawan)
Comments: 36
Kudos: 77





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title lyrics are from Adele's 'Skyfall' (with the necessary Time Lord biology change)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meet the Doctor: a man of mystery

Travelling with the Doctor was well,  _ weird.  _ It was a lot of running for your lives, seeing unimaginatively beautiful worlds and meeting new people. In the past year (if Yax had been keeping time right) the three of them have faced the past, the future, alternate worlds and the very strange present (Ryan still flinches around spiders; it’s cute) all because of a strange man who fell out the sky and into the middle of their lives (Yaz wouldn’t change it for the world, apart from the loss of Grace). 

The Doctor himself was even  _ weirder,  _ even down to his clothes, with his hideous navy checked trousers and yellow suspenders. (His look screamed charity shop. It made him look like a mad man. Yaz loved it.) The Doctor had cycled through a half dozen aged, frayed jumpers and hideously patterned button ups shirts before deciding on a worn spotted blue turtleneck. (Sometimes there’s even a matching waistcoat, if he’s feeling especially quirky.) But eccentricness aside, the Doctor was the most brilliant person Yaz had ever met. He was so brave, so funny, so much smarter than everyone in the room (any room, really). 

Without the Doctor, without all the adventures, without Ryan’s crap jokes and Graham’s packed lunches, Yaz thinks she would be entirely different person. For better or worse. So, despite all the danger he puts them in, despite the secrets, she trusted him completely. 

Besides, the Doctor is  _ old _ , older than them for sure, older than their whole planet maybe (is it rude to ask?). So, of course he has secrets. They had tried asking him but there was always some distraction that came up (giant mutated spiders were an effective conversation staller). 

Yaz had faith in her Doctor that he wouldn’t keep anything too dangerous a secret, even if the boys didn’t share her faith. He promised to protect them. 

_ O changed everything.  _

* * *

Hours before they end up clinging for dear life on a crashing airplane, the three companions followed the Doctor’s lead into the headquarters of MI6. (If part of that journey involved kidnapping and near death experiences, that was just part of the job. It all worked out in the end.) 

A concerned looking man hurried to greet them, shaking Yaz’s hand with a tight grip. “Ah, Doctor, what an honour to finally meet you. My name is C and on behalf of MI6, I apologise for the trouble.” (This mix-up kept happening. It was almost flattering to be mistaken for someone so impressive. Unless there was a gun pointed at her. Yaz hated guns.) 

“That’ll be me actually,” the Doctor interrupted. “New face.” 

Whispers spread throughout the cluster of men gathered behind C. 

“My bad,” C said, frowning a little and offering a hand out to the Doctor instead. 

The Doctor left him hanging. “Your transport left something to be desired. Almost killed us.” 

“Not cool,” Ryan added. 

“That wasn’t the plan. Look, Doctor to be frank, we are in trouble here and we need your help.” 

“Lead the way,” the Doctor said. (He could never resist a bit of trouble.) 

Ryan mouthed ‘spies!’ at his Grandad, miming shooting a laser from his watch, and unsubtly high fived Yaz. The Doctor seemed to be taking the threat more seriously, quizzing C on what happened to the agents. It definitely sounds alien. 

The Doctor soniced the unconscious agent. “This is beyond any human technology.”

C rubbed his forehead. “I was rather worried you were going to say something like that.” 

The Doctor grinned, nose scrunching. “Don’t worry, the team is on the case. Although, we’ll need your best woman to help us out. What do you call her again? The Horizon Watcher?” 

“Ah,” C said, “about O…” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Dhawan Master aesthetic is inspired by **[@the-doctor-falls take on it.](https://the-doctor-falls.tumblr.com/post/190900459669/my-friend-and-i-tuxthirteen-have-been-working)** (but I changed the colour palette a little bit) 
> 
> Comments and kudos appreciated.   
> (Plus, I'm interested to see what you think my take on O/the Master will be!)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the sake of not repeating what happens in the episode completely, Im skipping Barton's scenes with Ryan and Yaz. Recap: they pretend to be journalists and get invited to his party.

“Are you sure they’ll be okay on their own Doc?” Graham asked. “I mean, if Barton was behind C’s death then Ryan and Yaz might be in trouble.” 

“Don’t worry,” the Doctor replied. He was surprisingly relaxed considering they had just been attacked by weird shape shifting aliens. “Brilliant those two. Tea with O is more your style anyway.” 

“Does that mean there’s going to be sandwiches?” 

The Doctor laughed as the TARDIS came to a stop. 

“Where are we?” 

“The outskirts of Wellington, New Zealand. This is the address that O sent to me.” 

They stepped out the TARDIS, squinting in the bright sunlight. They were in a relatively peaceful place, with large scaping cliff faces with a tiny house clinging to the edge, overlooking a mostly empty beach. 

“Hello mate!” A woman with a familiar Northern accent called. Standing out amongst the sharp sunlight was a short woman who waved cheerily at them. 

They moved towards her, closer up Graham noticed that the woman was accompanied by two armed figures in black who stared at where the TARDIS was parked in wonder. Now he didn't have to squint to see her, Graham could make out that the woman was dressed in a baggy white shirt and waistcoat, a pair of goggles pushed up into her tangled blonde hair. She looked like a mad scientist. 

“Doctor,” she said, grinning, “you found me.” 

“Yep,” he said, “this is my friend Graham. The young ones are off doing some spy work.” 

“O,” she said, offering him a grease stained hand to shake. 

“Sorry?” 

“My name is O,” she introduced, “as in ‘oh no, not you again’ or ‘oh, for God’s sake put down that powertool and do some paperwork’.” Graham could immediately tell why the Doctor liked her. “Nice to meet you. I don’t suppose you could make us a cup of tea? It’s been a long day.”

“Mind if we take a nose around?” The Doctor was already pushing past her, towards the house. Graham caught O smiling to herself before turning to follow. (The Doctor had that effect on people. He charmed them, self-claimed social awkwardness aside.) 

“How do you know the Doc?” 

O grinned. “Oh, we go way back. Bumped into him a week into starting MI6. Put some weight behind my alien conspiracies. We blew up a Dalek ship together. Good times.” 

“Was he like… well that then too?” 

O glanced over to where the Doctor was nosing around, scanning her computer with a sonic. “He’s not usually so polite with me.” 

“Bit grey in here. You could use some colour.” 

Graham agreed - the inside had more of an ‘end-of-days’ bunker feel than a homely one. He was too polite to say anything. 

“It all serves a purpose.” 

“Pretty high tech stuff too. Lots of cameras.” 

“I like to know what’s coming,” O replied. She tugged the goggles from her head and pulled her long hair into a ponytail. “What happened at MI6? Why have you come to me?” 

The Doctor kept circling the room. “Something dangerous is attacking agents all over the world and rewriting their DNA. You’re the best woman for the jobs. All that time in MI6, collecting strange data they wouldn’t take seriously could save the world. I need your help.” 

O’s smile twisted into something Graham couldn’t place: something a little too eager. “Oh Doctor,” she said, “you have no idea how much I’ve always wanted to hear that.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's my O. I based her look off Jodie in 'The Woman Who Fell To The Earth' post-regeneration, plus the cute goggles she wears. No idea what her Master will look like yet but I have a few chapters to decide. 
> 
> Thank you to everyone who gave me such positive response for my first chapter. I usually write for tiny fandoms so it was nice to have some comments waiting in my inbox when I woke up. 
> 
> Comments and kudos appreciated!


	3. Chapter 3

“What have you brought here?” O poked her head out the door, gripping his arm a little too tightly. “Doctor, what killed them?” 

He looked down at the sonic: no reading again. But it wasn’t hard to work out who had killed O’s security. “It’s the same creatures that attacked us at MI6.” 

“You never mentioned they were invisible,” O said, grimacing. “We should get back in.” 

“I’m not getting anything,” he said, trying the sonic again, “but I can sense them.” 

“You couldn’t read them before,” Graham added. He was hidden behind them too; the Doctor had swept both O and Graham behind him protectively before they had gone outside to see what had triggered her motion lights. 

“I have a bad thought,” O said. 

“Don’t-” 

“If they can turn invisible,” she continued, ignoring Graham’s protests, “and manipulate technology, they should be able to creep up on us without setting off the sensors.” 

“They’re playing with us,” the Doctor finished grimly. “Okay, let’s retreat.” 

They crept back inside and the Doctor had a new appreciation for O’s thick concrete bunker. She wasn’t just paranoid; it was defensive. 

“They’re surrounding us,” O said, typing at her computers rapidly. “Closer, closer…” 

“I’d rather they didn’t get any closer,” Graham said nervously. “Doc?” 

“Boom.” O pressed a key aggressively and a golden barrier appeared, shocking most of the aliens and forcing them to give up. Only one remained, clawing at it. 

“Well I’m bloody glad that worked,” Graham said, “but there’s still one more.” 

O went back to typing, a determined glint in her eye that the Doctor rather liked. “There’s more where that came from. I fancy myself a bit of an inventor.” 

“Doc,” Graham hissed, “it’s getting in.” 

The creature squirmed, pushing itself through O’s thick concert barrier, turning a little grey around the edges. 

“O, can you work a little faster?” 

“I’m trying,” she replied. She had pulled the goggles down over her eyes and was playing with wires now. (It was hard to tell if he should take that as a bad or good sign.) “Doctor, get your sonic ready, in three, two…” 

“One!” They finished together, as a thick trap came barrelling from the ceiling, catching the figure. 

Graham jumped back a little. “Warn us next time.” 

“That was more fun.” O pushed the goggles back up on her forehead. “That should hold it.” 

“How? One of those things almost went through the TARDIS door earlier.” 

“I rerouted its own electric charge to trap it. Aren’t I brillant?” 

The Doctor pulled out the sonic, to help him think if nothing else. “Who are you? What are you? What are you looking for?” 

Despite the numerous questions he fired off, the alien stayed silent, following his pacing with its eyes. 

“We are beyond your understanding,” it said, “and we are ready?” 

The Doctor edged closer. “Ready for what?” 

It snarled at him. “To take.” 

“To take what?” he asked, eager to exploit the little information it was giving, even if it was just gloating. 

“To take everything,” it replied, “to take this universe.” 

And then it burst into a blinding light, causing the overhead bulb to shatter into darkness and leaving them without any way to find more answers. 

Graham’s phone rang and he spoke into it. “It’s Ryan.” 

“How did it do that?” The Doctor asked, although no one was listening. “Why? It destroyed itself-” 

“Backup generator’s running,” O called, stumbling round with switches, “give it a minute to heat up.” 

“Doc,” Graham said, panic in his voice, “Doc, it’s Ryan. He says something happened to Yaz and he’s lost her.” 

The lights flickered on. 

“No,” the Doctor said, “she’s not lost.” 

The three of them looked into the tank, which wasn’t empty like he’d thought. 

Inside was a shaking Yaz. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been longer than I planned but you know *gestures to how the whole world is in a state of crisis*   
> Anyway, hope you enjoyed this chapter!

**Author's Note:**

> This au has been on my Tumblr time line for so long and I've been dying to write some more DW since series 12 ended. I hope you like my take on it. 
> 
> (You can follow me on tumblr **@bazwillendinflames **)****
> 
> [ **Reblog on Tumblr** ](https://bazwillendinflames.tumblr.com/post/612603609483526144/hear-my-hearts-burst-again-role-reverse-au)
> 
> ********


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